is this a joke? You support HD DVD with a passionate vengence, leaving no room in any of your posts for any BD sympathies. Have you been reading your own posts?

You see I don't support HD DVD. I never have, but I've had to argue with people about everything from the use of the word data to the truth about replication costs. It's just that some of these BD backers are so strong willed they deny the truth for absurd reasons which makes me argue with them.

I wish MS hadn't bought Paramount and Dreamworks. Then I'd be owning the Denon player and be patiently waiting until the Spring for Universal BD titles. That however didn't happen so I have a combo player (or will next week had to give the loaner back this morning).

Now I see the writing on the wall. Stand Alone player numbers in September looked like 290k vs 270k with BD catching up. Today it's 450k vs 300k. 120k for HD DVD was just in this month.

They expect to match that in the holiday season, while the BD side is expecting 40k in sales between now and the end of the year. If Disney is counting Addons in the standalone category like the HD DVD Promotional Group is then I'd say we should hear something in early 2008 about them going neutral. Because MS is expecting to sell another 50k addons before the year is out. That would put the numbers at 920K for years end, that magic 1M isn't far off.

If however Disney doesn't count them (and they shouldn't) then we likely won't see the 1M mark get hit until May or June. That is if Toshiba doesn't try and sell another 90k in a week with another massive one day only sale.

The problem for BD is that when HD DVD hits 1M stand alone players the BD side will be lucky to be at 600k and more than likely will be around 500k. Twice as many stand alone players will affect sales of software. BD has to hope that PS3 sales continue with their current strength past the holiday season. The way the market trends work is that once one picks up legitimate steam it starts to further out pace the competition. So the salesman at Retail X will say "We sell more HD DVD players so if you're trying to choose who will win, we sell more of them," and then the fence sitter picks the trendy horse.

So if the trend continues around March or so HD DVD will start picking up possible BD buyers and BD numbers will start degrading.

Of course many things could change that, for instance the BD side could get a $299 MSRP player of their own out. BD could buy WB and New Line. HD DVD could do the same. I will say this if there is a major Studio switch in the next 3 months whomevers side it is on will win. That will likely be the dam breaker.

I just don't have much hope for BD. MS and Toshiba have already shown they're willing to spend money that Sony is not to get Studios. If MS and Toshiba buy another Studio it will only push their current momentum lead forward.

BD backers love to point to the software sales as a reason for being excited about the market. I just can't do that. Last year at this time HD DVD did the same thing, but I said "Wait until the PS3 skewers the numbers all up," and it took awhile. However mid to late January BD finally took over software sales and has never looked back. That was until Paramount/Dreamworks were bought.

Hardware sales are truly the deciding factor early in a format war, and this war is still in the infant stages. Look at DVD vs DIVX. DVD got to 1M players fast and Disney and FOX being the giant DIVX lovers they were jumped ship. FOX was the most reluctant to do so, and I figure this will be the same way.

In software BD won Black Friday by a huge 3 to 1 lead. In Hardware they lost by a huge 3 to 1 lead. The PS3 will have amazing holiday sales as will all consoles, game machines sell for Christmas. However in February will the PS3 be able to continue it's current trend? Because the PS3 is the only thing keeping BD in the game.

Which is funny because many gaming industry people think BD being in the PS3 is what has kept the PS3 from winning the console war. A DVD player in the unit and the unit would be priced equal to the 360 and the Sony console name would have won out.